Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-03-17
THE NORTHWEST
WASHINGTON LETTER.
WASHINGTON, D. c. March I, 1887

WASHINGTON, d. &. March I, 1887.
The Forty Ninth Congress has passed
into history. 1t leaves record which
compares most favorable with that of
any Congress of recent years, and sur
passes that of almost every Congress
which was divided by the two great
1t afforded striking example, too, of
the constant increase in the volume of
desired legislation which has been GO
ing on for the last six or eight years.
More bills were introduced in both
Houses of the Forty-Ninth, more COM
mittee reports were made, more bills
were passed, more became laws and
more were vetoed than ever before by
any Congress.
There were introduced into the House
during the two sessions II 1858 bills and
263 joint resolutions, on which over
5000 reports were made. This was sew
eral thousand more bills and over q
thousand more reports than were made
by the Forty-Eight Congress, which
had in its turn beaten the record. In
the Senate there were introduced over
5000 bills on which nearly two thous-
and written reports were made, being
upward of 500 more bills than by the
record, breaking Forty-Eight. The
death-roll also of the last Congress was
unusually long, comprising thirteen
names. ue ....
The total number of laws enacted was
about 1890, while 1872 were vetoed by
the President, making twenty-One more
instances of the exercise of the Presiden-
tial prerogative of veto than had oc-
cured from the foundation of the Gov
ernment down to the beginning of this
Congress. Only one private pension
bill and one public bill, namely that
providing for a Government building at
Dayton, Ohio, succeeded in passing
both Houses over the Presidents veto.
AS to what became of various impOr-
tant bills which failed, lack of space
will forbid me to tell their whole story
in detail. Quite a number of them,
however, which were passed by both
Houses, never reached the President
because of differences in regard to them
between the two Houses. a. Is
Congress was in session the whole
night proceeding the day of adjourn
ment. The House, with unusual per-
tinacity. sat continuously from eight
o'clock Thursday night until Friday
noon, the hour at which the session
expired. The usual scenes of a last
night were enacted. The Capitol was
filed with people who wanted to see
the close, but only small portion of
whom could gain admittance to the al
ready crowded galleries.
Congress reverses the usual circum-
stances which associate themselves
with death scene. Tt does away with
all solemnity and quiet, decOrous hush
and suppression of noise. People who
want to witness the most riotous scenes
ofwl1ich representative body can be
guilty, have only to crowd the galleries
during the dying hours of Congress
If they want to see men of reputed dig
nifty in undignified antics, they will not
be disappointed for there is a license
then which at other times is not in
dulged. Never since Congress had an
existence has there been such confus-
ion, haste and general disregard of
parliamentary safeguards in the trans
action of business, as characterized the
proceedings of Thursday, Thursday
night and Friday morning.
When it was rumored, about noon on
Friday, that the President was on his
way to the Capitol at the request of
Speaker Carlisle, who informed him
that certain scarcely finished bills could
be saved from death in no other way,
the crowd in the Capitol began to surge
toward the Senate wing, the Presidents
room being in that end of the Capitol
The result was that the police force had
more than it could do to control the
swaying mass of humanity that wanted
TO see the President. Congressman,
also, with varying success, made vigorous
efforts to squeeze their way through the
crowd to inquire if the arbiter of the
destiny of certain bills in which they
were interested had arrived.
He came with several members of his
Cabinet, repaired to his room and set
tied down to business. But the clock
now pointed to twelve. There was a
limit to the speed and endurance of
clerical fingers and the fagged-out en-
rolling clerks who had been running a
race with time won only in the case of
the District Appropriation bill. And
this was due to that venerable officer,
Cap. Bassett, who armed himself with
gas-lighter and las he has done bien-
nially fora quarter of a century, mount.
ed chair and pulled back the hands Of
the Senate clock. The President signed
this promptly, but the hands of the
clock crept up to twelve again before
the Deficiency bill could be engrossed
and IL failed. s